


Symbiotic Relationship

by Jumiku



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, non-consensual blending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jumiku/pseuds/Jumiku
Summary: After crashing on earth in 1978 Jolinar naps the first unsuspecting person, who comes across a dying Rosha; a little blond girl, whose military-father could prove quite useful, as she needs to speed the humans along in order to leave their dead-end of a planet. While doing her best to stay hidden, she tries to influence the people around her and all the while, she does her best to do right by her little host.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter | Jolinar/Martouf | Lantash
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	1. Crashlanding

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stargate 1980's: A New Friendship](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/540406) by HufflepuffBadger1978. 



In a room decorated with posters of planets, astronauts and space shuttles and with a ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark-stars, Sam Carter was sitting on her space-shuttle-bed by an open window playing with her Major Matt Mason-doll.

According to her dad, she was getting too old for this. Thankfully, playing with dolls was OK so long as she played with Marc or she simply played at night, when nobody was around to judge. Astronauts went to the moon anyway, not the sun, so it worked out even better. Making as little noise as possible, she had Major Mason go on adventure to explore the outer solar system and beyond. Just as he set foot on a comet in order to take samples, she saw something quite weird. She squinted at the slight flare heading her way and got up off the bed. Suddenly, there was a bright star in the sky and it was approaching earth fast.

Just like she had learned in school she ducked under her bed, covering her head and curling up as best as she could. She heard a loud crash, but it wasn’t as bad as she had expected. Slowly, she crept back out and realized it must have been a meteorite or something like it. Nothing worse. If she had watched, where it landed, she might have been able to get it, but she supposed being alert was more important.

It didn’t help the disappointment settling heavily in her heart at the wasted chance.

She was just about to tuck herself into her warm bed, when she noticed something in the trees next to her house. Their new house was across the street from a small but heavily wooded park, where Marc and she could play during the day, but at night it sometimes looked quite creepy. Sometimes there were even scary sounds. Of course, since she sometimes found empty glass bottles, she had a fairly good idea what sometimes happened there in the night.

That is why at first, when she noticed someone coming out of the trees staggering, she assumed they were drunk. However, when the person crumbled to the ground and stopped moving, she got a bit nervous. Her mom was out of town and that left her with waking her dad, if she wanted to do this the right way. Her dad had had a very long and hard day at work and would already be none-too-pleased to know she had stayed up late on a school-night. He would be even less so if she asked him to check on the probably-drunk person outside, so that was absolutely no option she wished to explore.

Anxiously, she watched for a few minutes, but the figure on the ground didn’t get up and only moved very slightly and quite laboriously. Looking at her bedroom-door she made a decision and crept out of bed again. She would just look, she thought, merely check if the person was OK and they likely were and in that case she would run back inside with nobody the wiser.

As she slowly snuck down the stairs wincing at every creak of them, she determined to leave the front door open, in case she had to make a hasty retreat. She slipped into her shoes without socks and opened the door, peering out into the dark. The person was just in the cover of the trees. Far-off she could hear a siren and she wondered, if maybe someone had already called an ambulance.

She still left the safety of the doorway feeling the chill night-air slicing through her thin pajama immediately. Shivering she got closer and whispered: “Hello? Are you OK, ma’am?” She could see it was a woman now. She looked hurt. An arm was not supposed to bend that way and she was bruised. Her clothes looked torn and dirty just like her shoulder-length hair. “Hello?” She repeated, coming closer still, until she was hovering over the woman uncertain what to do. She bent down to check, if the woman had a temperature. That’s what her mother always did, when Sam was feeling bad. Suddenly she was grabbed by the back of her throat and forced even further towards the person. She tried to scream, but was cut off by something sliding down her throat. She tried to bite down, but her jaw wouldn’t obey and a horrible pain followed. She vaguely felt herself crumble, as darkness consumed her. Only disjointed pictures reached her: the face of the foreign woman, a nightmarish voice whispering, “Goodbye my sweet…”, the woman disappearing in a flash of light and through it all she could feel rather than hear someone whispering to her how sorry they were and that everything would be fine and to go to sleep now.

She knew she should resist, but found it impossible.

Her alarm clock woke Sam to a slightly sore-throat and a headache, wondering if she had dreamed the strange woman, who had forced her to eat something strange. Maybe she was getting sick or had stolen too much jello from the fridge before going to bed. When she scrubbed her chin, because it itched, her fingernails caused something to flake off. She looked at her fingers and it looked like crusted blood. She rubbed her chin harder, trying to get it all off.

‘Samantha,’ a voice called resigned and the girl jumped. It had been the reverberating voice from the night before. ‘Samantha, I need you to listen and be calm.’ That was just about the last thing on Sam’s mind at that moment as she sprinted to her door, trying to get away from the creature. Just as she opened her mouth to yell for her dad, she felt a sensation almost like falling and suddenly saw herself turn around and start looking through her clothes, picking out a plain pullover and trousers. ‘Samantha, please stop panicking. Everything will be fine. Please calm down, little one’, weirdly the voice seemed almost pleading and Sam got the faint impression that the monster honestly was just as overwhelmed as her.

It didn’t really help and she desperately wanted to sob, but couldn’t. She still felt tears sliding down her cheeks, but her hands were wiping them away angrily. Good. Sam wasn’t a sissy who cried. And she certainly didn’t want her dad to see her like that, when he inevitably came checking on her to see why she wasn’t getting ready for school.

‘I am considering feigning a cold anyway’, the voice said distractedly. ‘I need to think. Please… She’s gone… We need to go… I-’ The voice cut itself off. Sam could tell she had a lot to say, but her emotions were in absolute turmoil. The same could be said for Sam.

For the first time Sam truly understood that the voice wasn’t just there in the room with her, but within her, controlling her and she felt more frightened than she had during the blind panic of before. The memory of the meteorite came back and of something causing her to want to gag and borrowing into her.

She was reminded of dozens of films and books she had found stupid, because they had been so unscientific, when she checked the details. She would have hyperventilated, if she only could. At the moment even that was beyond her. ‘Samantha’, the voice snapped and she felt a rush of frustration, hurt and anger wash over her, drowning out all else, before it disappeared. ‘Listen to me! My name is Jolinar. I am none of the things, you are imagining. I am not like that. I am not a goa’uld. Please, I had no other choice and will leave as soon as I am able to, but I couldn’t die with the information, I have. Do you understand?’

No. Sam didn’t understand one bit and being almost yelled at in her own head didn’t make being understanding any easier. She also didn’t understand the feelings rushing over her in waves, battling with her own fear, making each stronger; fear causing anger and anger causing fear.

‘Wait. Let me simply share as much with you as I dare. The less you know the better’, the last part seemed to have been said more to itself than Sam. She could tell the voice had been about to do _something_ , when they heard yelling from downstairs. “Sam! Are you awake, yet?” Her father didn’t sound like he was in a good mood, having to get up early, after getting into bed very late.

“Yes, dad! I’m coming,” she heard herself yelling back. ‘We should get ready, I guess. We will need to stay in his good graces.’

Sam could tell the voice was scheming and didn’t like it one bit. She wanted to warn her dad, but couldn’t do anything but be a passenger as the voice, Jolinar, got them ready for school.

“I am truly on the tau’ri,” she could hear herself mutter in absolute astonishment, as her eyes wandered over the posters of the solar system on her wall. Sam could tell the voice was doing something to her. Something far more intimate than the mechanical way she got them ready for the day. And then felt her headache get worse as something seemed to almost rip through all her knowledge of shuttles and space ships and such. A wave of despair washed over her and she noticed her body had stopped brushing her teeth. ‘This is going to be a problem… So primitive…’ She could feel the voice churning in morose thoughts.

‘What is wrong?’ she finally found herself asking, because there was nothing else to do and right now the only person around was the voice.

‘I am not a voice, little one. I’m female not an ‘it’,’ something was left out here, Sam could just tell, ‘and my name is Jolinar,’ the voice repeated tiredly and resumed brushing her teeth and going about her daily routine, suspiciously closely following Sam’s morning ritual. In fact, the voice had picked the correct toothbrush without hesitation as well and not even considered the other ones of the other members of her family. The girl had a sinking feeling this was not mere coincidence. ‘I swear I am only looking at what is absolutely necessary, child,’ she said apologetically and Sam could feel her wince, when she thought of what occurred just now. ‘Please forgive me, I usually do not take… not in such a fashion, not what is not freely given.’ Shame emanated from the voice and Sam had the feeling she wasn’t just talking about the memories. ‘Samanatha, I fear we have a problem. I still stand by what I said earlier: I will leave as soon as I am able, but I fear that might not be quite as fast as I had first hoped. There are unforeseen diffic-‘

“Sam?! Are you ready?! We need to go!” Her dad hollered upstairs causing both of them to jump, although one just figuratively. 

Jolinar blinked at the watch she had put on. “We still have time,” she mumbled confused.

Before the invader could start rummaging through her memories further, Sam said, ‘Get downstairs! I don’t want to get him mad.’ She only realized a moment later, that she shouldn’t be giving this Jolinar any tips and that in this moment it would be good if her father noticed her behavior was off.

It was too late to regret. Jolinar listened, grabbed her bag and started trampling down the stairs only to be immediately ushered to the jackets and shoes by Samantha’s very stressed-looking father. “Get ready and get in the car! There’s been an emergency on base.”

Sam wished she could ask her dad for help, but her body only threw on her jacket and put on shoes, before hurrying toward the car, where her little brother was already waiting. Her dad was close on her heels. Jolinar struggled a little with the seat-belt much to her father’s annoyance and uncomfortable with her dad’s hard stare, Sam found herself giving instructions. Well, she should probably reward the creature when she wasn’t just taking what she needed by force. “Sam, I will drop you two off at the bakery. Buy something for yourselves and take Marc to school. You should have more than enough time,” her dad ordered already speeding out of the drive-way and down the road. “Once school is out I’ll have someone pick you up. You remember your password, don’t you?”

“Yes dad,” Jolinar answered obediently in chorus with a much quieter Marc. Did the alien-creature even know about their emergency-password-system? Had it taken even that knowledge?

“That’s my girl,” he said handing her some bills. Sam felt her heart break a little.


	2. Educational

School, Jolinar realized, was just as awful as she remembered from those of her hosts who were fortunate enough to receive an education. To be fair, some had liked it themselves and there didn’t seem to be as much corporal punishment involved as usual. Jolinar had never found those memories to be particularly pleasant though and never been subjected to this sort of learning facility herself. It wasn’t improved at all by the fact that her host was extremely intelligent and well-educated and didn’t need the endless repetition that some of the other loud, rambunctious and _annoying_ children with their piercing, high-pitched voices seemed to need. ‘Hey! That’s not nice!’ Little Samantha protested to Jolinar’s mild amusement.

‘You will have a wonderful voice one day, child, but right now you are squeaky. Little human voices are just a little too high-pitched for my sensitive hearing.’ And they had a tendency to use them way too loudly. Jolinar winced when a girl next to her - Caroline, she gathered from Samantha’s memories – screamed piercingly when a boy pulled out the elastic keeping her shining blond hair in its braid. She hurried to get to the next classroom. Just her luck!

On almost any other planet the color would be exotic or completely unheard of, but here everywhere she looked something reminded Jolinar of her dear friend. She focused on trying to extract the location of the following class from her tiny host as gently as she could. Maybe a full-exchange would have been kinder after all, but the less the girl knew and exchanged the better, once Jolinar left.

‘At least I don’t sound like a broken cassette player.’ Jolinar applauded the attempt at an insult, even if it wasn’t very effective, since she had not known at first what the simile was. ‘Don’t blame me for your being stupid. And why does blond hair make you sad?’

‘Not now,’ the symbiote shut down the conversation. Luckily, they had just arrived at the Maths classroom. 

Jolinar found that the subject was far more trying than the social studies and language one. Wondering if one could die of boredom and frustration she jotted down the answers to the simplistic divisions. ‘Hey! You are doing it wrong. Also, you are not just supposed to do it in your head. The teacher got mad at me for doing that last week.’

Checking with some amusement how the child thought the simple division was supposed to be done, Jolinar couldn’t help the smirk spreading across her face. ‘Why would it matter if I solve it another way, if it’s still correct? And why do we have to do it on paper? You won’t have paper on hand all the time, will you? So this is better.’

‘Yeah,’ Samantha agreed grudgingly. ‘But this way, she will accuse us of copying.’ Grumbling at the unnecessary busy-work, Jolinar quickly and intentionally messily jotted down how she solved the problems. Frankly, she mostly just know the answers by heart, but giving a method was not hard to do.

She didn’t want any extra-attention from the teacher for now, especially not of the negative kind. In the end her hard work earned her a gentle reprimand to work on her tidiness. ‘Your writing _does_ look like chicken scratch,’ Samantha said, of course siding with the teacher and sounding affronted with her for blemishing her otherwise picture-perfect notes.

She didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed at the childish indignation. ‘You do know I only learned your writing today?’

‘Well, if you have to steal at least, at least use it properly.’ Jolinar got the impression, if she could, her host would be sticking her tongue out at her. ‘I wouldn’t just mess up your things.’

She felt a pang of guilt. ‘I… apologize. I honestly did not mean to,’ she replied contrite. ‘I’ll try to do better…’ Finished with her assignment she just put down her pen and waited for the last few minutes to trickle by.

The only thing she found marginally interesting was Arts, but Samantha had never done much practicing, never having had the patience for it and therefore had no muscle-memory. It all came together in what Jolinar thought were rather atrocious drawings, which were weirdly age-appropriate. Much to her humiliation the little one congratulated her on this one and the teacher even pointed out how well she did this time. She tried to shield poor, little Samantha from the unintentional affront, but surprisingly the child didn’t seem to mind in this case. Her host really had no appreciation for this hobby whatsoever.

It was probably for the best this way. Art had been Rosha’s private passion. It was better if her new host, however temporary, was as different as possible.

And she feared it might not be as short-lived as she would have liked either. If Samantha’s memories were correct - and Jolinar was willing to believe the space-loving girl was - then the space-faring was in its infancy on this planet and there was no knowledge of the stargates. Adding to that was this was the tau’ri. There would be no travelers coming here and if they did, they wouldn’t stick around long enough for or be willing to take a ship-wrecked goa’uld, tok’ra or little girl along. And for now those were her only options for gaining passage.

She felt the weird double-sensation as her real body twitched yet again. Her own, real body. There was too little space in this tiny little host for a rather old and large symbiote like her. She made a mental note to never let her beloved mates learn of this. Lantash would never let her hear the end of it and probably suggest a multitude of different ways to get slim. He had already done as much for months after seeing her true form for the first time. By the twinkling in Martouf’s eye at certain moments, she was willing to bet an al’kesh that he still made such less than gentlemanly jokes on occasion.

To be fair, she had made less than lady-like jokes about his girth to make him shut up.

It had been an educated guess at the time. Most of the born tok’ra were stunted in growth due to their less-than-ideal upbringing during their larval stage. Awful and lonely as growing up inside a jaffa had been, it had prepared her far better than a calm lake for taking a host and provided optimal nutrition. 

‘What is a jaffa?’ Samantha asked, snapping Jolinar out of the daze she had fallen into during the teacher’s rambling.

Of course, there was a completely different reason why she would never willingly discuss what happened and likely would happen on this planet with this particular host. She could just imagine Martouf’s disappointed eyes at this completely unequal relationship.

Distractedly, she answered, ‘enemies.’ She could feel the pout Samantha was trying to form. She had briefly considered changing hosts to Samantha’s father as soon as she was physically able. Not only would she be able to talk to him and maybe make him understand the situation, he also was – from what she understood at least – a soldier of high rank and therefore in a better position to help her.

But it would be months from now, before she could switch and that was if she wanted to risk damaging her host or herself. She didn’t. In fact, she would rather avoid doing any separation unsupervised. It wasn’t every day she left someone who wasn’t dying anyway. The chances of herself surviving unharmed were fairly good, but Samantha could easily receive irreparable damange.

In other words, she was stuck.

Instead of lingering on her problems, she tried once more to explain the situation to the now much calmer Samantha, whose boundless curiosity was clearly winning over her fear and anger, “Samantha? Please just listen calmly. I’m not an enemy. You see, my former ho-, my friend and I were spying on… a very evil person and needed to bring very important information to the other… to our other friends, but our enemy sent someone after us, a killer. We managed to escape, but were injured and when we finally thought we had made it, he shot down our ship.” Jolinar felt a mixture of emotions. There was overwhelming sadness as she tried not to think of the events of the last few days, of being tortured and finally escaping, only to be hunted down and having Rosha slowly succumb to the Ashrak’s poison. And yet, there was also this child’s exuberant interest and latent fear.

She caught a wayward memory from last night. So the child had seen her ship. Others must have seen it as well. ‘Yes. I think, that was us, Samantha. We ri- teleported down, when it was clear that neither us nor the ship would survive the crash.’ Dumping things down, so a child of this technological standard would understand, certainly wasn’t easy, Jolinar thought, carefully shielding it from the child.

With a pang Jolinar remembered those last few minutes on the ship. Jolinar had had to finally admit to herself that Rosha had been right all along. Her poor, sweet Rosha couldn’t be saved and they agreed that no matter what, they needed to reach the other Tok’ra. So Jolinar had laid a trap for some well-meaning passersby. She hadn’t expected anyone so young, but she couldn’t be certain there would be another chance. So Rosha and she had said devastated goodbyes. Her host had asked her to be gentle with the sweet child. She wasn’t sure she was succeeding at that. She was not motherly in any sense of the word. ‘Samantha, I know it is a lot to ask, but it is true: The lives of many depend on me bringing my intel back home. When I achieve that, I will leave you, even if it kills me.’ She felt a tiny spark of trust after those words and resisted the reflex to latch onto that and chemically make it bloom.

She could, if she felt inclined to. If she wanted, she could force or coerce or entice or warp this little mind by just immediately sharing all her vast knowledge of a multitude of life-times with her and of the love of more than twenty loving hosts, which far out-weighed this hateful one, whom she could secret away in her memories altogether. It would be so easy. It was just a short-cut towards what would be the optimal end for both of them, wouldn’t it?

It wasn’t like she could sink any deeper anyway. She had taken someone against their will. What did it matter then, that this person was too young to give informed consent to begin with? What did it matter if she made little Samantha want to help, instead of discussing her troubles and begging for help?

She winced when she remembered Rosha asking her to be gentle. Rosha had meant the entry, but it still felt like a betrayal of her memory to even consider this. She also remembered the long discussions, she had had with Selmak, when she was still sitting on a golden throne and thought the born tok’ra was a loyal goa’uld vassal. How the tok’ra had made her see things from a different perspective over decades of wise counsel.

It still mattered. It was what this was all about.

‘Who was this enemy of yours? Who was the killer? And will he come back? What about the ship? Who are these friends of yours? What is this information? And what…are you anyway?‘ The questions were tumbling around in Samantha’s head all at the same time and far less coherent than was desirable.

Jolinar remained silent for a long time and finally stepped back, causing a surprised Samantha to almost slump forward in her seat, as she suddenly regained control. Her shocked expression garnered a few looks and snickers. ‘I apologize. That was rather sudden. Try to act natural.’ There was no turning back at this point. She needed help and the only one, who could help her, was young enough to still play with dolls.

‘Action figures!’ Came the indignant reply and Jolinar got an image of a tiny man dressed in some kind of safety-suit. A doll. “It’s-“ The symbiote quickly took control of their voice, as the girl spoke out-loud. “May I use the restroom?” Sam asked when her voice was somewhat reluctantly returned to her, as all eyes were on them.

‘Good thinking,’ Jolinar praised as they were waved out by the disinterested Arts-instructor. Some of the kids still giggled yet again and she felt Sam squirm. The tok’ra got the impression that the kids didn’t particularly like her host. She didn’t understand it, but then she knew very little about children, never having had the patience for them.

They locked themselves in a tiny, somewhat disgusting cell with a toilet in its center. It was too small to turn comfortably and the walls hardly counted as such. They were very thin and didn’t reach the ceiling. Jolinar made a mental note to keep their bladder under control until they were home. The fact, that she could keep them from catching a sickness, didn’t mean that she wanted whatever was growing on these walls in their shared system.

This also really wasn’t the place to share top-secret information, but it would have to do. Jolinar continued, ‘Samantha, what I’m about to tell you is very rare and dangerous knowledge about the galaxy.’ She fondly received the little one’s enthusiasm. She knew this would grab her attention. ‘Goa’uld are humanities’ and my peoples’ worst enemy. Long ago, they made you think they were gods, but they are merely technologically very advanced. My friends are the tok’ra, who made it their mission to slowly corrode the goa’uld from the inside, destabilize them and hopefully one day destroy them. However, there is a traitor among us and if we cannot get him exposed many tok’ra may die.’ She could tell that Sam didn’t like the thought of good people dying and tried to capitalize on that, ‘And in turn many humans will die as well, because we won’t be there to help them.’ She let that hang for emphasis for a little while, before going on, ‘Our ship will have exploded on impact. It’s unlikely there’s much left to salvage at all.’ Which was both a good and a very bad thing. ‘And the killer. Yes. He may be back, but hopefully the explosion will make him believe he was successful in killing us. If not, I swear to protect you with my life.’ And she would. She just hoped that Samantha would be willing and able to continue her mission, if that were to happen. Of course, for that they would have to complete their blending properly. ‘What I am… Well.’ She considered giving Samantha an image, but disregarded that idea. ‘I’m a tok’ra.’ She hoped that would somewhat satisfy the curious little girl.

“OK… Firstly, my name is Sam not Samantha or child or little one. Secondly, that’s not an answer,” the little girl snapped out loud.

‘Apparently not.’

**Ages and rank in March, 1978:**

Name – date of birth – current age

Sam – 29.12.1968 – 9

Mark – 1971 - 6

Jolinar – old a. f.

Daniel – 08.07.1965 - 12

Captain Jack – 20.10.1952 – 25

Teal’c – 1899 - 79

Colonel Jacob Carter – 21.08.1938 – 39

Major George Hammond – 1942 – 35


	3. On Leave

**On Leave**

Her cheek rested against the car’s window as Sam watched the dreary desert go by. She felt like banging her head against it instead, but decided it wasn’t worth another scolding.

It was almost a week ago now, that Sam had met Jolinar. It weirdly felt both longer and shorter in a confusing mix, as the time had flown by, but so much had happened and at the same time frustratingly little. Sam was fairly certain the later feeling came mostly from the grumpy, old tok’ra, who was frustrated with the lack of progress.

She could empathize, but she had warned Jolinar that chances of her plan succeeding had been slim to none.

She remembered well, how their pact to work together had started. It wasn’t in that toilet stall at school. Not by a long shot. Sam wasn’t dumb after all. You don’t just start cooperating with a foreign entity, because they told you they were good. That would be so naïve!

Also, the answers she had gotten hadn’t satisfied her in the slightest. Jolinar had told Sam that she’d have to wait until evening to get the full answers she wanted and she didn’t let herself be worn down to respond to any more of the hundreds of the burning questions in the girl’s mind.

‘All will be clear then, child.’

‘Sam!’ Sam corrected annoyed and felt Jo’s amusement.

‘Jolinar,’ the self-proclaimed tok’ra said using the same tone of voice Sam had, much to the child’s amusement. The rest of the school day had, of course, passed in a torturously slow pace and by the end of it, Sam had almost badgered Jolinar enough to make her talk again (she was sure of that), but then the bell rang and Jolinar had instead reminded her of picking up her little brother.

It wasn’t until they lay in bed after a weirdly tense dinner, where her dad seemed deep in thought that Jolinar finally seemed ready to explain. ‘Stop complaining,’ she said snappishly, brought to the brink of her – in Sam’s opinion – non-existent patience long ago. ‘The reason I didn’t agree to tell you before is that it’s easier this way. Just wait a while, relax and-‘

‘I don’t think I like this,’ Sam said worriedly. This sounded big like something she should talk to her mom and dad about.

Sam felt a wave of weird nostalgia come from that place in her mind, where she was beginning to be able to locate Jolinar. Maybe she was just trying to make sense of all this though. ‘I will not give you more information than necessary, so that you will be safe, when I leave you.’

‘But that’s not fair!’ Sam complained at Jolinar withholding knowledge from her, even though that did sound like the kind of thing her dad would do. ‘You promised, you’d explain!’

‘And everything truly important will be explained. However, if I gave you all my knowledge, it would harm you and also make it impossible for me to leave without harming you further,’ Jolinar explained.

Sam still felt like protesting. After all, didn’t she deserve all the information she wanted for having her body stolen or at least borrowed? Then again, she didn’t feel like arguing too much with the body-snatcher. She had proven that she could be quite mean and powerful.

‘What I’m trying to say is that I will show you the relevant information. Seeing is believing is it not?’ Sam had to admit that sounded sweet. Being shown space-things by a real-life alien? That might actually make this almost worth it.

‘How will you show me?’ She tried to curb some her excitement. ‘Will we go to space?’ She had tried to sound cautious, but it came out with all the eagerness of her own dreams. Lying in your own head was apparently next to impossible.

A second later the realization was swept away as Sam felt a whirlwind of information pass through her mind too fast to really be acknowledged, just cramming itself into her head almost all at the same time. Dimly she felt that she had some kind of weird headache starting at the nape of her skull and piercing through her entire head, but it felt strangely unimportant for such a sharp pain. It bothered her far less than the whirlwind of information and the weird certainty that there was more, which was withheld from her. The idea of even more of it was equal parts enticing and off-putting.

It was only when it finally started to dwindle down to a small stream of last droplets of information that Sam could finally look at what she had learned. The pain was no longer an unimportant thing, but it was much smaller now. ‘I’m taking care of that,’ Jolinar promised, so Sam tried to keep still and ignore the aches.

Instead she concentrated on thinking of what she learned. Sam would have thought, looking for these foreign memories would be easy. It was not. That bothered her quite a bit. Just like with her own memories, she had to properly think to remember things. She couldn’t just pull out a nicely labeled file holder marked ‘alien knowledge of space’.

But thinking about the small bits that had been told to her before, she now found them expanded upon. The goa’uld were no longer some enemy of Jolinar and as she claimed humans. They were weird, little tentacle-snake-creatures that burrowed into people and took them over and made people think they were gods, so they’d have an easy, cushy life. The tok’ra were similar, but really different, too. They fought the goa’uld, especially their most hated enemy Ra, usually by pretending to be goa’uld and making them fight each other. The assassin was a goa’uld, too. She remembered some of the weapons she’d have to watch out for and the thought made her shiver.

Sam felt a warmth spread through her. ‘I’ll protect you to the best of my abilities and I have a lot of experience.’

‘Then why don’t you give me more of that?’ Sam felt she was entitled to all the knowledge that could save her and a bit of that so-called experience would go a long way.

There was a heavy silence from the other side, before the tok’ra replied, ‘Because it would destroy your personality. You are not o- ready for it. If it comes to it, I can take over at a moment’s notice. Just… If the ashrak does come for us, I will try to distract him from you by sacrificing myself. You must run. It would be up to you to fulfill my mission.’

‘What?’ Sam asked completely flabbergasted.

‘If I should leave without undoing certain connections properly, you will know my mission and how to contact the tok’ra. You do know that this is of the utmost importance.’

‘I do…’ Sam’s eyes snapped open to the darkness of her room. ‘You tricked me!’ She still didn’t know what the mission was, only that it was super-important.

‘I didn’t. What you feel is just because you know how important the information is to the tok’ra and what it could mean to your people, if something happened to them; even if you do not consciously know the information.’ Sam couldn’t tell if this was the truth or not. It sounded reasonable enough, but she felt utterly outraged that she had memories in her head that Jolinar could keep from her and take away again.

‘That’s not fair,’ she said pouting.

‘It’s not an equal relationship,” Jolinar agreed to Sam’s surprise. “As you are not my permanent host, I’m more indebted to you than I would usually be. It is my responsibility that your life is inconvenienced as little as possible by me. I will also make sure you are compensated generously in the en-.’

‘I don’t care about that!’

‘Even if it is in scientific knowledge of the cosmos?’ Jolinar asked with amusement, as Sam had fallen silent thinking of all the possibilities. ‘I’m not trying to bribe you, but it is customary in most parts of the galaxy to give back what you take in some form or fashion and what I take is time. So why shouldn’t that be generously repaid?’

Sam might only be ten, but she still felt pretty certain this counted as a bribe. It didn’t hurt to go along. From the knowledge she had gained from both their meeting and the shared knowledge, biased though that might be, fighting was impossible anyway. ‘So… How do you get off earth?’ She couldn’t suppress her excitement at the very idea.

‘A spaceship. There are likely some left from when the goa’uld ruled your planet.’

‘And where was that?’

‘You know this,’ Jolinar replied. ‘It is in Egypt. I know from your memories that people go there by flying vehicles.’

Sam felt rather doubtful. ‘I’ve never been there. It’s really far. And dangerous, I think.’ Politics wasn’t a topic she was interested in at all.

‘We will find out. You have seen some advertisements for travelling there to see the pyramids. So it can’t be uncommon,’ Jolinar argued.

Sam had the feeling Jolinar hardly ever accepted a ‘but’. She wondered how her usual partners dealt with that. Jolinar had not given her any personal information at all. ‘Fine. But you try to convince mom and dad. We hardly ever go on holiday, ever. And the last time we did, it was to one of dad’s army friends by the coast. Nothing big like you want.’

As it turned out, going on holiday at all weirdly hadn’t been an issue. Sam’s mom had come home in a hurry the next day and she and her dad had told Sam and Mark that they’d be going on holiday with her for a while. It had all been very confusing and sudden. Her father had seemed very worried and more snappish than usual and her mom seemed only slightly less so. The kids in turn were hardly excited, despite the prospect of being out of school during term for a few weeks.

Jolinar was least happy out of all of them, though. For days she had tried to suggest going to see Egyptian pyramids, only to be rebuffed offhand and then ignored entirely. Sam found it funny (despite knowing it was essentially her getting into high water with her parents), as Jolinar was clearly not used to being ignored and absolutely furious. Still the tok’ra kept trying to play sweet and understanding, so the adults wouldn’t get even more annoyed with her. It was all for nothing though. The trip was planned without Jolinar’s input, as Sam had expected.

The whole thing was completely weird. Apparently, they were planning to drive along the east coast with a trailer, but they would drop off their father along the way for his job.

Needless to say, something like this had never happened before. Their parents were trying to pass this off as convenience and something their mom had wanted to do with them for a while, but Sam wasn’t stupid. Even her silly, younger brother had picked up that something was wrong. Either way, it would be a long weirdly tense trip mostly through desert for days. Hopefully, they could at least go swimming a lot once they reached the coast.

Jolinar had been uncharacteristically silent for the duration of the trip, only sometimes speaking up to snap that she wasn’t pouting, but rather rethinking her plan and trying to figure out what Jacob and Debra were doing in the desert.

Sam started outside at the ever-same scenery of bushes and arid ground. Occasionally, her brother or her would yell at the other that they saw some kind of critter in the dirt. Those were the highlights of the day, so they both dozed off more than they usually would.

Sam was not woken by the car slowing, but by a weird tingling sensation and someone else’s sudden agitation. Her eyes were already open and she found she was staring out the window into the dark, where some soldiers were apparently helping her dad with his unusually large luggage. Jolinar had her eyes fixed on a box they had not noticed before. It must have been packed somewhere, when they weren’t looking. Somebody rapped angrily against the car window and they looked up into the admonishing eyes of her dad.

She herself didn’t even know what she had done wrong. It wasn’t polite to stare, but her dad was aware of her fascination with all things military and usually encouraged it. And it wasn’t as though she was staring at a person. It was just a box. A box, that made her tingle… What did that remind her of? Oh! The weapons! The space-guns tingled if you got really close to them. ‘Exactly,’ Jolinar agreed out of nowhere and tried to act uninterested, seating herself properly again, while following the box out of the corner of her eyes.

It disappeared into another vehicle pretty quickly though. ‘Do you think it could be something that didn’t get busted by your crash?’

‘That or they did find the ashrak after all,’ Jolinar said. ‘A little optimism will not hurt us.’ Even though she tried to convey that to Sam, it was clear that she wasn’t exactly the optimistic type. She was just trying to make Sam feel safer.

‘I’m not dumb, you know,’ she reminded the other pouting. Jolinar didn’t bother to reply, still trying to unobtrusively follow what was happening outside. Both their attention’s were drawn to the front of the car, when Sam’s father opened the front door and kissed his wife’s cheek. However, he whispered something softly to her, that Sam felt she shouldn’t have been able to catch, “Try to keep to the desert for a few days more and then stay in Alma. I’ll contact you there in two weeks time. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. Just… Precaution.”

She saw her mom nod slightly and she replied just as softly as she pulled her taciturn husband into a somewhat awkward hug with her sitting and him bowing over. “We’ll be fine. You be careful out here. ”

‘Definitely something strange going on,’ Sam thought as her parents separated and her dad went over to check her little brother was really sleeping and making sure he was secure in his booster seat.

‘Far more likely than an actual problem, your people are only scared because they found some small burned parts of my ship and don’t know what to make of it. As I understand it, your people are only in a state of fragile equilibrium with another country, are they not? Maybe they fear, they were attacked.’

‘That’s even worse! What if we start attacking them, because we blame them?’

She felt Jolinar’s worry before the other could completely contain the emotion. ‘I’m sure they won’t act rashly.’

‘We should tell them!’ Sam thought vehemently. ‘Even if they didn’t believe me, you could show them.’

‘No, out of the question,’ replied Jolinar without any room for argument.

Sam wasn’t in the habit of just accepting something like that though. ‘But-!’

When he opened her door, he gave her a stern look. “You should be asleep, young lady.”

“I was, sir. I woke up, when the car stopped,” she tried to mollify him, as she guessed she might not see him for a few weeks. She didn’t want to part with her dad being mad at her.

His face softened somewhat and he crouched down placing his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. We made a bit of a racket getting my things out, didn’t we?”

Sam was silent for a spell and just when she wanted to say something about the Soviet Union not having bombed them, her voice betrayed her. ‘You are being so unfair!’ Jolinar chose not to reply.

“Anyway, your mom planned a really nice trip for you, while I’m gone this time, so you’ll hardly notice I’m away. Just… be careful and help your mother and be good to your brother, you hear?” Her dad said in a weirdly grave tone. He had often said things like that before going away for weeks and months on end. But he had never sounded so weird about it. Would it be more or less worrying for him to know it wasn’t an attack or anything, but an alien refugee?

“Yes, sir,” she said obediently giving him a perfect salute, making him smile.

She watched with mixed feelings as her dad turned around walking towards the car, where the rest of the soldiers were waiting. She didn’t know what to make of any of this. Never before had her dad sounded so… scared?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait.  
> I sadly couldn’t use my computer for a while, as I felt too sick doing so. I hope you understand. I’ve started writing regularly again a few days ago, as I feel much better. I’m not completely happy with how the chapter turned out, but I thought it would be better to get it out now.
> 
> Ages and rank in March, 1978:  
> Name – date of birth – current age  
> Sam – 29.12.1968 – 9  
> Mark – 1971 - 6  
> Jolinar – old a. f.  
> Daniel – 08.07.1965 - 12  
> Captain Jack – 20.10.1952 – 25  
> Teal’c – 1899 - 79  
> Colonel Jacob Carter – 21.08.1938 – 39  
> Major George Hammond – 1942 – 35

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by “Stargate 1980’s: A new Friendship” by HufflepuffBadger1978, a story I believe could have turned out brilliant, but will probably remain just a little teaser forever.  
> In order to not be a clone of that story though, I will try to stick to the following: Jolinar being a born goa’uld is more hardened than many tok’ra and will readily sacrifice her own morals, if she thinks the end justifies the means. The beginning is supposed to mirror Nasya a bit.  
> I take great, great, great liberties with people’s locations and assumed ranks at this point in time based on averages and what works for the story.  
> In order not to complicate this too much, timetravel shenanigans haven’t happened in this timeline.
> 
> Ages and rank in March, 1978:  
> Name – date of birth – current age  
> Sam – 29.12.1968 – 9  
> Mark – 1971 - 6  
> Jolinar – old a. f.  
> Daniel – 08.07.1965 - 12  
> Captain Jack – 20.10.1952 – 25  
> Teal’c – 1899 - 79  
> Colonel Jacob Carter – 21.08.1938 – 39  
> Major George Hammond – 1942 – 35


End file.
